Find A Way: Your Daily Dose Of Self-Help

My love of TED talks is no secret, and this one by Diana Nyad is one you must watch, especially since it is the season for New Year's resolutions.

At age 64 Nyad completed the extreme 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida. Her talk is funny and inspiring and just a pinch bad ass.

Happy Halloween

I'm busy in the best way possible this week, wrapping up a few pieces. Lots to read next week, when it all runs.

Hurricane Sandy was a year ago, and this TED Talk came over the transom this week. Once the storm passed and the power was out in Manhattan, like everyone else, I was in a mad scramble to charge my phone and other devices. Novelist Abha Dawesar was also part of the blacked-out masses, eager to get back online. Her talk explores what being without access to the abstract, digital world showed her.

Why Privacy Matters

Privacy is a hot-button issue these days, especially online. Alessandro Acquisti,who studies the behavioral economics of privacy, explains why it matters. In this talk he shares details of recent and ongoing research, including a project that shows how easy it is to match a photograph of a stranger with their sensitive personal information.

This TED Talk Will Make You A Better Person

TED talks are wonderful nuggets of information, offering new perspectives on topics most of us don't think too much about -- that's why experts and academics often give them. (The parodies of TED Talks are also quite funny.)

This talk by Andrew Solomon about parents who love children who are wildly different from them, be it disabled, autistic, etc., is an absolute must watch. If by the end of it you don't feel more compassionate and kind, then you are made of stone.

Solomon wrote the book Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity It's an enormous book but after this talk I'm keen on reading it.

The 20s As A Defining Decade

This is an incredible TED Talk about the importance of seizing your 20s, since it turns out to be a much more defining decade than originally thought. Please share it with your nearest and dearest millennial! There is a lot of brain growth and rewiring going on in early adulthood, and a chance meeting or encounter can change the course of development.

Science Sunday

I love a good TED Talk, and in this one we learn about four men in Cambridge in the early 19th Century who came up with our modern notion of science, introduced four major principles into scientific inquiry, including the word "scientist." Get a little nerdy and watch it.

Chemical Attraction

I'm fascinated by all aspects of human attraction and have always been a firm believer in that attraction is a primal, chemical reaction. I remind my friends of this when they are frustrated by online dating. It is imperative to physically get in front of people and interact, not just flip through profiles, like perusing the phone book.

This TED Talk is about how our personalities are linked to brain chemicals, and how these brain chemicals play a legitimate role in who we are attracted to. Fascinating all around.

TED Talk: Model Edition

Model Cameron Russell gives an honest talk about the life of a model, especially about their personal insecurities, among other topics. There's lots crammed into nine minutes. Amazing to watch.

Four Lessons In Creativity

I love a good TED talk, and this one -- Four Lessons In Creativity -- is quite good. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the middle of an endeavor.

The Electric Rise And Fall of Nikola Tesla

It's Sunday night, and most people may not even be going to work tomorrow.
Take six minutes out of your night and watch this fantastic TED talk about the life of Nicola Tesla. You will be glad you did!

More about Tesla here.

Why Is X The Unknown?

The Story Of The 404 Page

This is a short TED talk about 404 pages -- those pages that show up on a website when you've hit a bad link. The video of the bicyclist doing a facer is priceless.

Connected, But Alone

She makes so many good points.

Algorithms For Fun And Profit

This is cool.